A starving homeless 70-year-old woman who was dumped by an ambulance outside the Hamamatsu, Japan city hall died after municipal officials did nothing to help her.

Officials said a police officer found the homeless woman in a weak state near Hamamatsu Station at about noon on Nov. 22, and called for an ambulance. The woman told paramedics that she had not eaten for four days and wanted some food. Since she did not show any signs of illness or injury, she was taken to city hall, which has a social welfare division.

The woman got out of the ambulance herself, but she soon lay down on the asphalt. Social welfare division officials gave her a packet of dried rice used as emergency food. To eat it, however, she had to open the packet and wait 20 to 30 minutes after adding hot water or 60 to 70 minutes after adding cold water.

Municipal government officials watched over the woman and considered what to do with her, but she was not taken anywhere.

A member of a support group for homeless people was the one who discovered the woman had died.

“Before I came, no one touched her body and checked her condition even though a public health nurse was present,” the member said. “Couldn’t they have taken her inside or at least have laid a blanket down on the road for her?”

The member said that when he approached the woman, the emergency food was unopened on her chest.

Rather than showing any remorse for the poor woman who died on their doorstep, government employees insisted they handled the situation the best that they could.

“Within the scope of what we were authorized to do, we did everything that should have been done,” a social welfare section official said. “To workers, the woman didn’t appear debilitated. They aren’t doctors so they couldn’t predict that her condition would suddenly change.”

. . .

“Workers gave emergency food to the woman, who was complaining of hunger, and considered what welfare facilities she could be taken to. They also called for an ambulance the second time. They did not evade their duties or fail to carry out their legal responsibilities,” a report by the Naka-ku social welfare division said.

The cause of death was acute heart failure.